Hello film explorers and welcome back to another Second Thursday Sequel. This week we will watch Pocahontas II: Journey to a New World (1998). In this film, the male characters immediately judge others; they jump to conclusions quickly. However, the female characters exhibit patience and try to keep the peace, instead of becoming emotional. In the beginning, the settlers are nervous about the Native Americans nearby. When Pocahontas (Irene Bedard) goes to the settlement to see the ship, one of the men acts hostilely towards her and even appears to want to hurt her. When John Rolfe (Billy Zane) steps in to help, she gets upset with him. He “interfered” whenever she had things under control. No damsel in distress here. Then on the ship going back to London, Rolfe reacts negatively towards the male Native American accompanying Pocahontas. He does not like to deal with unexpected changes. After arriving in London, Rolfe is convinced Pocahontas will insult people and the king will reject her. However, she is confident she can handle anything with his help. Then we add in Mrs. Jenkins (Jean Stapleton) as another strong female character to help and Pocahontas is set to go. Between the little old lady and the handsome man, Pocahontas learns what she needs to know to interact with the king.

Photo from Cornel1801.

When meeting the king and queen, the queen “welcome[s]” her while the king seems to judge her at first. Even in England, the woman seem more open to change than the men. Later, the queen is the one who realizes there is “no gold” and accepts Pocahontas as a truthful person. She even gets her husband to understand, too. In the end, the women maintain a level head and react thoughtfully unlike the men who overreact and jump to conclusions. This is ironic because society expects women to react emotionally and men to maintain their cool. John Rolfe can be seen as a complicated character, especially since people have mixed feelings about the end of this movie. If you are interested in the real story of Pocahontas, there is much to be found on the web. Thank you for reading! See you next week!